


As You See Me

by paintedwolf



Series: Sub Rosa [6]
Category: Charmed (TV 1998)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22924393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedwolf/pseuds/paintedwolf
Summary: Tag to “The Courtship of Wyatt’s Father”"Phoebe and Paige had to tell her; there was no keeping a secret like this anymore."Continuation of the the scene at the end of the episode, when Phoebe and Paige give Piper The Talk, and reveal to her who Chris really is.
Relationships: Chris Halliwell & Piper Halliwell
Series: Sub Rosa [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638253
Comments: 14
Kudos: 95





	As You See Me

"Is this a bad time?"

He knows it’s a bad time. Of course it is. He knows _exactly_ what he’s just interrupted, can see it written boldly on their faces. 

He hadn’t planned to walk in at that precise moment, though. 

He hasn’t been listening to their conversation, hadn’t even been sure he’d be here until he’d knocked on the door.

Phoebe and Paige _had_ to tell her; there was no keeping a secret like this anymore. They’d reassured him everything would be fine, that Piper would be okay with this, but it had done nothing to stop the slow roll of nausea that had been threatening to turn his stomach inside out all morning. His relationship with Piper has been strained ever since he told them that _Wyatt_ was the evil he’d come back to protect everyone from. He can’t blame her, after everything that happened that day, but it's hard to imagine she’ll be so willing to forgive and forget when the only time they communicate anymore is out of necessity.

And running into Clarence earlier hadn’t done much to help, either. He might have only been there to dispense some friendly advice and see him on his way, but Chris has yet to stop compulsively checking his hands to make sure they’re still solid and not fading away. That whole ceasing-to-exist thing has done one hell of a number on his nerves.

Piper turns toward him sharply, sending another jolt of panic zipping around his body, and Chris has to exercise an unreasonable amount of self-control not to jump out of his skin. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is slack, and Chris isn’t sure if it’s a good or a bad thing that she seems to have been rendered temporarily speechless.

“O-kay,” says Phoebe way too cheerfully as she slaps her hands on her knees.

She nudges Paige’s shoulder when she stands. “Paige and I should probably go and, y’know...do stuff. Give you guys some time to talk.”

She waves her hands in exaggerated circles and steps around the coffee table, pulling Paige with her.

“Uh, yeah. Good. Good idea Phoebe,” says Paige brightly. “Who doesn’t love talking, right?”

Piper has yet to stop staring at him, and Chris has half a mind to go with them. She’s starting to freak him out.

Phoebe gives him a smile he interprets as encouraging on the way out, and Paige pats him on the shoulder. He realises how ridiculous it’s getting when he swears he can hear the funeral march playing, and he forces himself to calm down because he’s faced much worse than a potentially pissed off Piper. And even _that_ he’s lived through more than once. 

But his feet don’t seem to want to cooperate in getting him across the threshold of the room, so he stands there, hovering in the doorway and resisting the urge to scuff his shoes on the carpet.

Piper seems to have regained her equanimity, anyway, and she turns to him fully, hands clasped lightly in front of her.

“Hi," she says.

"Hi."

He doesn’t know what else to say.

"You going to stand out there all day?"

He raises his shoulders in a slow shrug. He hasn’t been this off-balance for a very long time, and Piper’s gaze is making him feel small, like he’s just a kid with scraped knees and mud on his shirt, about to be grounded for making Mrs. Bailey’s cat glow in the dark.

"Come here, Chris," she says gently, waving a hand at him.

He pushes off the doorframe, walks in quietly. Stops just shy of where she can reach him. The muscles in his back and shoulders are stiff and tight, and his hands are shaking. There’s only one thing he can think of doing, one thing that’s standing out clearly in his muddled thoughts.

“Piper, I’m so s–”

"Don't," she says sharply. Chris closes his mouth, bites down hard enough on his lips that he’s almost surprised he doesn’t taste blood. He should have known that an apology wouldn’t be worth much– not when he’s already done it so many times; he just hadn’t thought she’d shut him down so quickly. 

But she’s also not telling him to leave yet, so he chances a glance at her face.

She’s looking at him differently.

There’s no accusation or suspicion in her eyes, none of that barely-there tolerance he’s got so used to lately – that she regards him with because he’s their Whitelighter and she’s trying to be civil for expediency’s sake. He’s seen every possible variation of disdain and anger and impatience that she’s capable of, but there’s none of that now. Just...surprise, wariness. Curiosity. 

There's no reason to hope that it’s not just the shock; that once she snaps out of it, she won’t remember how much he’s lied and schemed and manipulated. This is just one more thing he can add to a very long list, and he’s already thoroughly tested the limits of her forgiveness. Being Piper’s son doesn’t change everything he’s done. He’s given her more reasons to hate him than he ever has for her to care about him. Knowing his true identity might give her a new lens through which to look at everything that’s happened, but she doesn’t owe him anything. He doesn’t expect things to flip straight to fine again just because he’s suddenly family.

He drops his eyes away from her face, looking for something he can focus on – his shoes, the carpet – anything so he doesn’t have to see when things inevitably change. He can’t bear to look at her and see nothing but contempt, not now that she knows the truth. 

His carefully constructed walls of omissions and half-truths are growing painfully thin and weak, and he’s not sure they can withstand his mother’s rejection as well.

He wants to leave, wants to spare himself from all of this, but it’s not fair to not at least give her the chance to say what she needs to.

He’s staring down at the floor, trying to fortify himself the way he’s done every day, when he sees her shoes move closer, shiny brown boots opposite worn sneakers.

They're almost toe to toe when she reaches out to him and takes his hands in hers. He flinches at the unexpected contact, but his fingers curl automatically in response to her touch. It’s different than he remembers. The last time she held his hands like this, she could close her fingers almost all the way around his fists. They were gentle hands, healing hands. They were care and comfort and support. They’re no less any of that now than they were before, but they're smaller, more delicate, no longer as strong as his own.

She squeezes slightly, and he sees through blurred vision the way her hair drops off her shoulder as she ducks her head.

“Chris, look at me,” she says.

He purses his lips and lets the mask fall over his face again, a shield of defiance, because it’s all the defense he has left. Memories of things that haven't happened yet slide to the front of his mind to blend with the present. She’s asked the exact same thing before, in the exact same tone, and it’s jarring experiencing it when he has to look down at her instead; when the lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth are almost non-existent; when there's not yet any history behind soft smiles and conspiratorial winks and concerned frowns.

Her eyebrows draw together as she studies him, eyes darting left and right, up and down. He doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but he bears it in silence; he isn’t sure he’s able to speak anyway. His heart is somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, and it’s pounding hard enough he’s sure she can hear it from there.

He blinks when she lets go of his hand, and wonders if this is the part where the illusion shatters. This Piper isn’t his mother, not yet, and the only real connection she has to him is the tiny little person that just started growing inside her.

She raises her arm and uses her fingers to brush away a strand of hair that has fallen in front of his eyes. Chris doesn’t breathe as she hesitates, hand still held up between them, trembling faintly. The tips of her fingers flutter over the arc of his cheekbone, before coming to rest against his temple. She cradles his face in her hand, and when Chris finally, really looks at her, all he wants to do is weep.

She’s smiling at him, gently, another shade of his Piper, his mom. Something lurches inside of him that he isn’t prepared for and he scrambles to dam it all in before he can do something stupid. It would be _so_ easy to let it all go, to surrender to everything that’s been building in him since that day. He’s been carrying so much for so long, sometimes he feels like he’s barely holding it together. It’s been _eight years_. Chris has always thought he had it all figured it out, that he’d got to a point where he can live without her. But he’s learning that’s a fallacy, something he’s told himself is true and real when all he’s really done since it happened is splint the wound and hope to hell it’s enough to keep him going. It’s burning inside of him now, the need to be close to her again, and he turns his head to press into her touch. He wants to hold her and never let go; wishes he can bury his face in her hair and tell her how much he loves her and how sorry he is, for everything.

He wants her to tell him it’s all going to be fine.

"How could I have not seen it?" she says quietly, in a hitched whisper that cuts right through him. She looks sad. Her lips are pressed together in a thin line like she’s trying not to cry, and it _hurts_.

He reaches up to where her hand is still pressed against his face, and wraps his fingers around her wrist. Her pulse beats steadily under the inside of his thumb.

"You weren't supposed to," he tells her regretfully, his voice thick and hoarse.

Frustration bursts out of her in a sudden gust, and she steps back. "But I'm your _mother_."

"You didn't know," he presses. "How could you?"

He can see this is upsetting her, but for several long seconds, he doesn’t know what to do. He’d expected her to be mad, surprised – _incredulous_ even – but somehow he hadn't anticipated her beating herself up for not knowing something he’d tried his damnedest to keep a secret.

She paces a step away from him, hands on her hips, and there’s that crease above her eyebrows again, the one that appears when she’s thinking carefully, or annoyed. Chris wishes he knew _what_ she was thinking, but he’s become a little rusty in “Piper” over the years, and he doesn’t know this version of her as well as he once knew his mom.

"Chris, we treated you like crap,” she says finally, throwing her hands up in genuine distress. “I told you I never wanted to see you again! What kind of mother–"

Chris steps forward, driven by a swell of guilt and affection as strong as any he’s felt for her. He tries to think about that day as little as possible. He’s been through a lot, but he’s never come as close to breaking as he did when he finally turned them against him.

He knows how important family is to Piper, knows that in her eyes it’s a bond that’s forged deeply and strongly. But even after everything, there’s no possible way he can accept her believing she’s done him wrong somehow. 

"Piper, no. That's not– it's okay.” He takes hold of her arms, looks straight into her eyes, “You didn’t know who I was. You were just trying to protect your family."

She opens her mouth to say something, but stops, and Chris doesn’t know what it is about the expression on her face, but his thoughts unexpectedly fracture and he’s back in the future.

_She’s telling him she loves him, and Chris, who’s fourteen now and at that stage when it’s not cool to tell your parents you love them back, hesitates on the stairs. He rolls his eyes, but his lips twitch into a soft smile. Love you too, Mom, he says._

_It’s the last time he ever tells her that._

Piper shifts slightly and the memory fades like an afterimage from looking into the sun. He lets go of her like he’s been burned, but she’s too distracted by her own thoughts to notice anything’s amiss. He shoves his hands into his pockets, and his memories to the back of his mind.

It takes barely a few breaths to detach himself again, the routine almost effortless after so much practice. It’s harder to calm the maelstrom inside him, but he pushes down on it ruthlessly, and diverts his thoughts to safer territory. This Piper can never be his mom, not when he has to go back to the future one day. He can’t go through that again.

It’s better this way.

Piper sighs heavily, but there’s also a touch of amusement in her voice when she says, “What am I going to do with you?”

He shrugs. There are plenty of flippant responses he can give, but he settles for, “You can always let me stay awhile longer. Finish what I came here to do.”

She rubs her forehead tiredly and moves to lean against the corner of her bed. Her entire body seems to fold in on itself, as if in defeat, and Chris reminds himself that this is the exact reason he didn’t want any of them to know the truth. It’s _his_ burden to bear, not his family’s, and he’s had a lot longer to get used to it all.

“You really were telling the truth about Wyatt, weren’t you?” she asks sadly.

He knows she knows the answer to that already, and he doesn’t want to repeat it. Doesn’t want her to feel like she’s failed Wyatt, too.

“Yes,” he says. “But I promise, I _will_ fix it, Piper.”

Her lips purse slightly at the use of her name, but he dismisses it. There’s no good arguing over semantics now.

“Chris?” Piper asks suddenly, “What did you mean, when we saw you in the Ghostly Plain? When you said you were ceasing to exist?”

Damn. He’d been hoping she wouldn’t remember that. When he’d told them that, he hadn’t been anticipating _coming back_ , much less having to answer to it afterwards. What is he even supposed to say? _Yeah, sorry about that. I almost vanished forever because I broke up your marriage and didn’t leave myself enough time to deal with the consequences._

He shakes his head. Heat rises in his cheeks, and he stumbles to verbalize an answer that won’t sound completely awful.

Piper, thank God, takes pity on him, and arrives at her own conclusion. “Uh-huh,” she says, “Is that why everyone’s been acting so weird lately? Because you’ve been trying to...get Leo and me back together before..?”

“I–” he swallows. “I ran out of time. There were so many other things to worry about, that it– that I–”

“Almost forgot to make sure you were born?” she says, eyebrows raised.

“I should’ve been more careful, I know. There are _so_ many things it could’ve screwed up.”

“That’s not–” Piper’s eyes narrow, and her head tips to the side again. 

The silence that follows is awkward. Chris is uncomfortable being the centre of attention– it’s never been _his_ thing. He would much rather keep his head down and do what he needs to. He’s learned that it’s the best way to keep out of trouble.

But Piper’s focus is almost entirely on him right now, and he doesn’t know how to deal with that. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to maintain his objectivity when the line between his charges and his family is smudged and blurred.

He knows things can’t go back to the way they were. They know too much now. It means a few less secrets for him to guard, but he chose to keep them for a _reason_. He’s terrified of changing the wrong things, even more afraid that he might go back one day to find nothing has changed at all.

He’s had his moment of weakness, but now it’s time to get back to his mission. He can’t get close to them. Can’t get close to _her._

He _has_ to keep his distance, for the sake of the future. For the sake of his own sanity.

“Why didn't you tell us the truth?” The question draws his attention back to Piper. He bites his lip. It’s not exactly a surprise that she would ask, but he doesn’t think he can give a response that she’ll be happy with.

“Not just about...this,” she continues. “But everything. Don't you trust us?”

"No! It's not that,” he says quickly. Trust in Piper and her sisters has never been an issue, but there are so many other factors...risks, variables to consider. Nothing is ever simple with time travel. Sometimes, it’s better to play it safe, even if the more precarious path is the easier one. 

“You have no idea how many times I wanted to,” he says. “I just…please believe me when I say, the less you know about the future, the better."

"Including my own son?" she asks incredulously.

He blows out a breath. He has to make her understand, “Piper–”

“You never were going to say anything, were you?” she interrupts, and it’s another lash across his heart seeing how wounded she looks. He can handle it, when she’s mad at him for something he’s done, but it’s like a punch to the gut that what she’s really upset about in all of this is the possibility that she wouldn’t have known him for who he is. There’s a part of him that can’t quite believe it, that absolution like this can be so easy. In his vocabulary, _easy_ is dangerous, a warning signal, something to be wary of. 

“Not unless I had to,” he admits quietly.

Piper shakes her head, and holds out her hand, beckoning him closer. Chris knows he shouldn’t, but he does anyway. He never was able to say no to her. She stands as he approaches, and stretches up on her toes to kiss his cheek. 

Something really does shatter in him then, but it’s more like a shaft of light breaking through the clouds, something pure and warm that illuminates parts of him that he thought had long since gone cold. 

“Well,” she says, “I’m glad you did.”

It’s almost too much. Chris can barely remember when he’d last felt happiness like this. It’s just a moment, an evanescent freeze-frame of contentment, acceptance, peace, but it’s enough. For the first time since he arrived in the past, there are no pretenses, no lies, no iron-clad shields and defenses. He’s just Chris, Piper’s son, Wyatt’s little brother, and she’s his mother, beautiful, beloved, perfect. He breathes it in, lets it fill the cracks and corners of him, like a balm for his soul and a brace for his body.

Then he gently tucks it all away. 

“Hey, uh,” he starts. He shakes his head minutely, has to swallow a few times before he thinks he’s warded off the last of the tremor in his voice, “Is there– do we have any Gypsum root anywhere? I wanted to use it to make a potion– see if there’s another way we can trace the source of that Darklighter arrow we retrieved from the alley? I’m not sure scrying will work this time, so I wanted to have a backup just in case.”

Piper frowns slightly in confusion, “Can’t that wait?”

“What?” he says. “No, it can’t. Those Darklighters were hired guns. If we find out who they were working for, maybe we can find out who turns Wyatt.”

“And what about you?”

“What _about_ me?” he asks. He feels abruptly guilty for the whiplash change back to business-as-usual, but none of this is about _him_ – never has been. It had to, for a little while, to ensure that he actually gets to see this thing through to the end, but he can’t afford any more distractions. 

“What about–?” Her whole face folds into a classic Piper Halliwell Scowl of Disbelief that makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. 

“Chris, I want to find this demon, or whatever the hell it is, as much as you do. But you can’t just come in here, tell me you’re my _son_ , and then leave to go hunt Darklighters like nothing’s happened.”

“Actually, that was Phoebe and Paige." 

He’s not entirely sure what he’s thinking, saying that, but the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.

Piper’s eyes narrow dangerously. " _Excuse me_?"

"Phoebe and Paige were the ones who told you, not me,” he clarifies. 

Piper’s expression turns mutinous, but Chris waves it off, “I'm just saying."

They glare at each other for several seconds – irresistible force and immovable object – but Chris is the first to fold. He never did like being at odds with her. He’s trying to re-establish his boundaries, sure, but that shouldn’t mean he has to act like he doesn’t care a damn about any of it.

"Look, Piper, I know this is a lot to process. _Believe me_ , I know.” He lets his voice soften, dips his head so he doesn’t tower over her quite so much, “But none of this changes the fact that I came here to do a job...and I have to get back to it."

He silently implores her to understand how much he needs to do this, how important it is.

She sighs a quiet, regretful breath and presses her fingers into the centre of her forehead, massaging a short vertical line down to the bridge of her nose, like she’s trying to will away a building headache.

“In the kitchen,” she says.

“What?”

“The Gypsum root. There’s some in the kitchen. Middle cabinet above the stove.”

Chris opens his mouth automatically, but the words wither and die on his tongue before he can say them. They all seem so inadequate.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Piper reaches over to rub his upper arm, “I get it. Just, go do whatever you need to.”

The corners of her mouth tick upward again into a kind smile, and Chris asks himself, not for the first (hundredth) time, what he did to have earned a mother like Piper. 

“Thank you,” he says.

“But this conversation?” Piper notes, flicking a finger back and forth between them, “Not over.”

He nods, then takes a step back, pivoting on one foot to turn towards the door. He feels like he’s losing something with every step he takes away from her, but at least she can’t see the shadows that settle across his face.

“Oh, and Chris?”

He stops. It’s not hard to recompose himself, but he wishes he doesn’t have to.

“Be careful, okay?” she says, like the thought of him being hurt is sincerely troubling to her. It's strange to think that it probably is, now.

“I will,” he promises, because she asked, because there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her.

He doesn’t hesitate as he walks out in search of potion ingredients.


End file.
